30 years ago New York City was a dangerous place. Especially Bushwick in Brooklyn, my neighborhood today, was one of the most poor and devastated places you could imagine. You can still see that in missing buildings, which were often burned down by their owners because they just wouldn’t sell.
Anyway, I just read a blog post on woot.com that has occasional reviews of funny used books. This one is called “Street Smart” and was written by Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa and their lawyer Murray Schwartz.
In his blog entry Jason Toon highlights the funniest and most paranoid moments of the book (including Guardian Angels fashion) and wouldn’t miss the chance to spice them up with a handful of hilarious comments. My favorite excerpt from the book is probably this one:
As if Americans didn’t have enough on their plates with foreclosures and rising unemployment, the obesity epidemic continues to weigh down the Land of the Free.
If you’re free on Friday night and you are in Berlin, head down to the Skizum Studios, for the free screening of the Vietnam documentary “Sir! No Sir!” The movie tells the – relatively unknown – story of the underground GI resistance movement during the Vietnam War.
Film club b-ware! are again organizing their “Awarded Summer” (Ausgezeichneter Sommer) in Berlin, which means independent movies screened at amazing outdoor locations Bar25 and Badeschiff (at Badeschiff you can even enjoy the movie from the pool!).
See the trailer here and learn more about the movie and the screening at Bar25 after the jump.
In the late Palezoic and Mesozoic times, a supercontinent is said to have existed, which was comprised of all the continental crust of the earth. It’s name is a composition of the Greek words for all and earth – Pangea.
Pangea Day – tomorrow – is a joined effort to turn this supercontinent into reality again. It will bring together an audience of 500 million or more people in a worldwide filmfest, which you can follow in thousands of venues around the globe, or simply on your PC screen. The festival features two dozen outstanding short films, the crème de la crème of more than 2,500 entries worldwide.
Just when you thought the Dems were beginning to move in circles, looking to something as colorful as gas taxes to spike the “Donkey Punch,” Obama supporters turn the knobs and change the beat.
Following Will.I.Am’s wildly popular “Yes We Can,” featuring soul saint John Legend, basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the angelic Scarlett Johansson (just to name a few), TI$A (from the superior, but much overlooked, hip-hop/r’n'b producer/writer/super group Sa-Ra Creative Partners) drops another MTV/Hollywood gem to keep the election spectacle vibrant.
Exactly one year ago, at 9:01 am, Cho Seung-Hui paid $14.40 for a U.S. Postal Service express parcel, two hours after he had killed two students at a dormitory of the Virginia Tech University.
The package was bound to go to NBC’s headquarters; the Zip code and street address were incorrect, so it reached the network with a little delay. The parcel contained 27 quicktime-files with videos of Cho, several pictures and a collection of his writings. Cho signed with „A Ishmael“ and returned to the Blacksburg campus to murder another 30 people before shooting himself.
NBC went on to air parts of Cho Seung-Hui’s “Multimedia Manifesto” – a decision which has been widely attacked, as well as it has been defended. What guided the editors at the Rockefeller Center to impart those disturbing communications of a multiple murderer? Why are the decisions of TV producers still relevant in the age of the Internet video? And when does Cho become too much Cho? [Read more]
Call him the Black Kennedy, the Tiger Woods of politics, or the Second Coming. The epithets used to describe presidential hopeful Barack Obama (D-Ill) are a testimony to an election that is so much more than politics.
There is something close to biblical about rain, when the skies give way to an almost cathartic downpour, draining off the drudge, sins and conversation-residuals clogging the streets. In any Hollywood movie (especially considering the writers’ strike) it could have been a Second Coming scenario, yet it was an unassuming Monday with weather more befitting of an unassuming British city pronounced Gloomster (but probably spelled Gleucmcester) in the midst of Berlin. The prophesized savior of American politics, Barack Obama, drew close to a 100 people, who sought shelter in the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung on this rainy, borderline-suicidal Monday evening, to learn about the self-professed harbinger of a new era – in a country so far from theirs.
In case you didn’t notice already – it’s christmas season! Here at the tapmag headquarters, the team is eagerly awaiting the festivities. We are happily humming christmas songs all day long and the air is buzzing with anticipation of all the presents to come. [Read more]
Yes, lumping together a whole birth cohort in a single catch phrase is bound to fail. In the end, I don’t feel part of generation X, Y or Z. While I sense a trace of unity when meeting people with whom I share the birth year, I doubt that this connection transcends watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV at the same age.
What makes me a part of generation Y then (I am slightly too old for the instant accessers)? Other people define me as. Why do they do that? Because they want to express their alienation with people of my age through a concept that allows them to point their finger at exactly what it is that they just can’t understand about my generation. [Read more]
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